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E-Cigarettes Linked To Helping People Quit Smoking, Says Study (theverge.com)
According to a new study, electronic cigarettes help people trying to quit smoking. The Verge reports: For the study, published today in the journal BMJ, researchers analyzed survey data from over 160,000 people spanning almost 15 years. They found that smokers who used e-cigs tried to quit smoking more often and succeeded (for at least three months) more often than smokers who didn't use e-cigs. Overall, more people quit in the latest year that data was available -- the 2014 -- 15 year -- than in the 2010 -- 11 year. Today's study didn't address whether e-cigs are luring people who would otherwise be nonsmokers. But it did find that e-cigs do have a role in helping people quit. The researchers looked at several population surveys that cover the years 2001 to 2015. These surveys provided smoking-cessation rates, and the most recent survey, from 2014 to 2015, had information about e-cigarette usage. The results show that 65 percent of e-cigarette users had tried to quit smoking, versus 40 percent of people who smoked but didn't use e-cigs. About 8 percent of e-cig users succeeded in quitting for at least three months, compared to about 5 percent of non-users. Overall, the number of people who quit smoking increased by 1.1 percentage points in 2015 from 2011. This might not seem that impressive, but it still represents about 350,000 people.
Does the study address whether e-cigs help people seriously reduce, but not quit entirely, smoking normal cigarettes?
From a family member I can say that getting an e-cig reduced smoking from about a pack a day to two-three cigs a day; certainly an improvement though I have no idea where that would fall in this kind of either-or study. Probably on the "Didn't try quitting" or "Tried and failed" columns.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
" succeeded (for at least three months)"
I succeeded to quit smoking for at least 3 months without any e-cigs and that for at least 8 times.
But seriously, quitting for 3 months only is a joke, you'll need to do it for at least 20 years to succeed sending thousands of heart surgeons and nurses to the unemployment office.
The fine makers and sellers of this vape stuff!
8 percent is still an awfully low success rate. personally i tried to quit cigarettes several times with the patch, nicotine gum, and vaping with plain nicotine, but always went back to smoking after about a week. now it's been almost 3 years since i quit for good, and what made the difference was vaping liquid with "whole tobacco alkaloids" (WTA), meaning they add not only nicotine but also 3 other psychoactive compounds from the tobacco. no more cigarette cravings, hundreds of times less toxic than smoking. end of public service announcement.
But the p-values, why does not the summary mention the p-values?
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
In fact, it was shown that simply saying it was shown does not carry a lot of weight around here.
Hold my beer and watch this!
They found that smokers who used e-cigs tried to quit smoking more often and succeeded, however they forgot that corelation does not mean causcation. Intentionaly? Could be, depends on who is behind the study.
Could it be opposite? Could it be that smokers who really want to quit will try e-cigs more often ten those who don't?
Trade 1 filthy habit for another?
First, it is none of my business what an adult does to their body willingly. Have at it.
Don't force anyone else to inhale 2nd hand smoke.
At least e-smokers don't constantly liter and think nothing about it. Saw yet another smoker driving yesterday throw the cig butt on the road. Automatic $1000 fine here.
But the smell of both smoking methods is highly offense. I completely understand why someone would smoke some pot, but I don't get the cigs or e-cigs at all.
Long-time smoker here, smoked for 30 years, quit over a period of a year, and for 30 more years have never once ever wanted to smoke a cigarette again.
The key is this: you never, ever "need" to smoke. In fact, just the opposite, you have to force your body to accept smoking. Just remember how sick you got at the beginning. That's how much your normal body doesn't like smoke. It's an irritant! What kind of crazy logic is it to intentionally breathe in smoke?
I sat down 30 years ago and made a list of all the pros and cons of smoking. Honestly, there are a lot of things on both sides of that list, it surprised me. But when you net it out, what remains is this: all that smoking gives you is the desire to have another cigarette.
In other words, it's a cheat. I try to not do stupid things. Cheating yourself is colossally stupid.
Go cold turkey. Forget about walking up to it, attack it head-on. It took me three attempts, each one much easier to maintain than the last.
You can do this. Your body will thank you.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I had my last cigarette June 5th 2010. That's when I started "vaping" with the very primitive equipment available then.
It wasn't easy. Cigarettes create a cross addiction not only to nicotine, but to at least 4 chemicals in the smoke which are MAOI inhibitors (anti-depressants). So as a 30 year smoker I did have withdrawals, but not nearly as bad and quitting cold turkey.
I tried all the alternatives... Chantix cause major health problems.... Welbutrin made me manic.... Celexa put me in a state of mind where if not careful my behavior could be more reckless than my normal measured self. Patches and gums worked- but only if I were willing to use them to the point of nicotine overdose. Cold turkey was a no go.... roughly 10 attempts were made... impossible for me.
That being said vaping is not a vitamin. It delivers nicotine. And it's addictive. It's not a good thing.
But if you are trapped by tobacco and willing to work at it- it can be a good thing. For smokers trapped by the habit only.
Anyone else who is into vaping for "sport" or "cool factor" are just fools.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
It seems to me that people who are using e-cigarettes are already unhappy with some aspect of smoking already. Be it cost, health, convenience, or something else, something drove them away from traditional cigarettes to e-cigs. If they were committed enough to make that change and stick with e-cigs, they may have been more likely to have had success quitting smoking in a world that e-cigs did not exist.
So instead of a headline like "E-Cigarettes Linked to Helping People Quit Smoking", perhaps a more accurate headline would be "Committed Cigarette Quitters More Likely to Try E-Cigarettes As a Stepping Stone"
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
In other news, heroin helps people quit pot.
I've heard that smokers are just perverts who want a dick in their mouths. This is why e-cigs work when patches don't
What did the authors report for funding and conflict of interest, both for themselves and the studies included in the review? The BMJ is good at that kind of disclosure, but there are subtle biases in industry-funded studies in health that can skew the results in their favour. What were the outcomes? How much did they rely on self report? People know which treatment they are receiving, so social desirability bias comes into play. How much attrition was there in the studies? How were drop-outs handled analytically. Look up AMSTAR for quality appraisal of systematic review.
I'm hardly surprised that governments are taking a hard line towards vaping. They learned from trying to dislodge tobacco cigarettes, even after the evidence was conclusive that there was a causal connection between smoking and a whole slew of diseases. Big Tobacco has a whole playbook for delaying and discrediting recognition of harm from its products, and way deeper pockets than public health.
A neighbor is a tech employee formerly of an independent vaporizer company now owned by one of the big three tobacco corps. By next year, perhaps now, all of the worldwide big tobacco corps will have completed buying out all of the competition except perhaps for one and the little guys in china who will be banned to import to the OECD. They are working on having this new and far safer for humans challenge either owned and/or regulated away to raise the bar of difficulty to the point that profitability of old tobacco is not in question, they can survive massive taxes as long as addiction is assured. Of course pharma grade OTC drug nicotine 'juice' will be priced as profitable as cigarettes so no more good deal either. This is opium war bullshit When the regulation is in capture the mob tells the cops what to do, same here, they can't let people quit the addiction and quit paying Tobacco. They have already lost the big lawsuits, they are immune from most health prosecution since they bribed the states, but what about monopoly, I guess not because big THREE.
two words-
Bull Shit.
Nonsense. No such thing has been shown. For me, the e-cig was a gateway to not really having any more interest in nicotine at all. Not just being a white knuckle quitter, but actually being able to be around someone smoking and have no interest at all.
I wanted to quit and tried many times, but always failed when I was getting that painful scratch in the throat... my body asking for another cigarette...I got e-cig but not to smoke but to help me quit, when i was getting that "scratchy painfull" feeling I had 2 pufs (normally I would have to finish entire cigarette) and it was going away. after 2 weeks I was off both. I quit drinking for 12 moths at the same time as well.
>> 65 percent of e-cigarette users had tried to quit smoking... About 8 percent of e-cig users succeeded in quitting for at least three months
Wow that's a pretty big fail rate. Is E-Cig juice really so addictive? If so shouldn;t it be banned? I mean what about people that are now hooked on vaping that never were cig smokers?
Kid down the street had his e-cig blow up in his face, nearly took out his eye, grand mother put him in the shower to wash off the blood and then found out the e-cig had set the house on fire.
Two months later the rebuilding is still going on and now he is out of the house, no word on weather he gave up smoking!
Pain pills really helped me quit my addiction to opium...
Eating dirt helped me quit my food addiction...
I don't think shifting from cigs to vaping should be considered "quitting" smoking.
Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor that is bad for the cardiovascular system.
Of course I'm still stuck on vaping. But at least I don't have that hacky cough anymore, and I can actually exercise. So, there must be some benefit.
True. But I'm still in better shape now than when I was smoking.
Been cigarette/smoke free for 5 years now. Smoked for around 15 years. Tried e-cigs, had issues with PG that at that time since it was in almost all juice I believe. Tried VG based juice and it was better, but it just didn't work for me. Found people talking online about Swedish Snus. Ordered some off the Internet and after around 2 weeks was down to one cigarette a day. After 30 days never had the desire to smoke anymore unless a trigger occurred (like extreme stress) but when those triggers would occur, and I would cave, would take like 3 puffs and not get what I used to get, so those triggers disappeared.
Like others have mentioned, it's NOT just the nicotine your body is addicted to, there is the physical act and I believe other chemicals. Since I have been away from all of those for so long if now if I try a cigarette, I am back to what I was when I was younger. A level of disgust and have no interest at all in it. I am still addicted to nicotine, (and only nicotine) but the mortality rate for Swedish Snus is MUCH lower. There are plenty of studies around confirming this. Swedish Snus has been around/used for around 200 years.
I only know anecdotally, but the success rate from switching to Snus seemed to be really high from what I recall years ago when looking into it.
... if it means I never have to watch a smoker flick their butts into the street ever again.
Does the study say it helps teens hide smoking habits from their parents? How do I get my nephew to stop smoking this garbage?
E-Cigarettes Linked To Helping People [Start] Smoking
I suggest making a study on how many young people start smoking with E-cigarettes, and subtract the cessation rate from that number. If people start smoking because of the perceived 'more healthy' aspect of the technology then the overall 'benefit' is a negative correlation.
I smoked for about 15 years. I attempted to quit a fee times and would even make it a few months but I enjoyed the act. About 5 years ago, I committed to switching to a vaporizer. Now I barely use it. I started with a low dose of nicotine and quickly switched to 0mg. I don't even take my vaporizer on trips or to bars any more. I occasionally puff on it while working on a particularly difficult task or when stressed but it lives in my office at home.
My daughter will be born tomorrow and she'll never know her dad as a smoker. (Or her mom but that's not my story.) Vaporizer FTW!
If you read between the lines it talks about users of limited numbers which include people who had smoked 100 cigarettes in their lifetime. Which isn't a lot (my parents were chain smokers so 100 in a lifetime is pretty low). Also includes people who included at least 1 e-cigarette as a smoker. Fully addicted smokers generally have smoked significantly more. if you only smoke a few it's easier to quit. I haven't have time to fully analyze the data, but this feels like a pitch to lower "sin taxes" as well as get E-cigarettes allowed in countries that ban it. To say e-cigarettes are a quitting aid tool is misleading, especially in this study which seems to leave too much room for manipulation. Feels like when Intel said Rambus Ram was superior to DDR at in insane scale, only for people to discover that Intel rugged the test so the results would be in favor of Rambus but Rambus actually did worse in real world situations.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
There has been no measurable warming in about 10 years, which is also about when e-Cigs came out. Therefore e-cigs have stopped global warming.
Looks like a replacement of 1 source of nicotine with another. That's like saying drinking scotch helped me quit drinking beer. I have scotch everyday, but I totally quit beer! Guessing an e-cig company paid for this study.
in fact it was shown to be even more toxic to the smoker and for the second hand smoke.
Citation?
As a lifelong asthmatic, I take this sort of stuff pretty seriously. Secondhand smoke from cigarettes was the bane of my existence for much of my life. When it comes to e-cigs, however, I have yet to see data suggesting they are anywhere close to as dangerous as traditional cigarettes, either to the person vaping or to those around them. The only legitimate complaint I've been able to formulate so far is that the odor from some vaping liquids, flavored ones in particular, may act as an irritant to asthmatics, in much the same way that strong perfumes or potpourri can cause some of us to have breathing problems.
While it's true that various studies have found toxic substances in the vapors produced by e-cigs, the data I saw suggested that the levels present were mostly orders and orders of magnitude below those seen in traditional firsthand and secondhand smoke. Even in e-cigs operating outside of "safe" temperature bounds, the toxins (if they were detectable at all) were oftentimes nearly indistinguishable from trace quantities already present in the air. We know that burning things--whether we're talking about mesquite wood in a BBQ smoker or the liquid used in an e-cig--oftentimes produces carcinogenic vapors, but the actual risks involved are thought to be relatively low at this point, and we don't have any long-term studies disputing that notion at this point.
That said, with the market largely unregulated there are a lot of vendors selling vaping liquids with unknown contents, so we can't dismiss the notion that they may be putting dangerous substances in their products. Moreover, routinely scalding your mouth or throat by vaping has (I believe) been shown to increase your risk for cancer in those areas, in much the same way that you run the same risk if you drink scalding tea or coffee on a regular basis (more or less, by damaging your cells with heat, you're increasing the likelihood that you'll suffer from a cancer-causing transcription error during cellular reproduction).
If you have information to the contrary, I'd love to see it, since I am unabashedly biased against e-cigs and would love to have ammunition in the fight against them. I also need to be intellectually honest with myself, however, and that means being willing to admit that I don't have anything substantive against them at this point.
Tobacco free for 7 years
Non-smoker here... I built a deluxe e-cig to see what the fuss with nicotine was about, and after encountering the physical addiction, I sent it to my elderly father who has been a heavy smoker since his youth. He switched over to the e-cig 100%, got sick of the ecig, weened off mathematically, and never went back to cigarettes.
Smoking cigarettes looks cool. Vaping looks dorky. No one in their right mind would start with vaping, but cigarette smokers wishing to quit don't mind looking dorky to get rid of the cancer sticks.
Signed: nicotine-gum chewing, patch-wearing ex-smoker.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
It seems to me that people who are using e-cigarettes are already unhappy with some aspect of smoking already. Be it cost, health, convenience, or something else, something drove them away from traditional cigarettes to e-cigs. If they were committed enough to make that change and stick with e-cigs, they may have been more likely to have had success quitting smoking in a world that e-cigs did not exist.
So instead of a headline like "E-Cigarettes Linked to Helping People Quit Smoking", perhaps a more accurate headline would be "Committed Cigarette Quitters More Likely to Try E-Cigarettes As a Stepping Stone"
Didn't read the article just searched it for key words, figuring is just better SPAM than most.
I use a Top-O-Matic cigarette machine made tada TOP ($50). I purchase pipe tobacco for less than $10 for 6 oz which last me close to a month. Pipe tobacco is a weak approach as it doesn't have the "strength" of a normal cigarette.
I have reduced smoking by well 1-2 packs a day to 10 roll my own. I could easily quit if I just wanted to, I just took the cheaper approach.